Capitals 1, Cardiff 4: Caps pay for a horror five minutes

ROSS DEWAR

A horror five-minute spell at the start of the second period was too much to recover from as Edinburgh Capitals went down 4-1 to Elite League leaders Cardiff Devils at Murrayfield last night.

It’s now seven wins on the spin for the Welsh outfit, their last defeat coming at the hands of second placed Sheffield Steelers, who Edinburgh host tonight (face-off 6pm).

The home side battled hard to keep it goalless in the opening 20 minutes, however all their hard work was undone as Devils opened the scoring 45 seconds after the restart, defenceman Mark Richardson with a power-play goal.

A terrible piece of defensive play gifted Devils a second at 23 minutes, 10 seconds. Eventual goal-scorer Chris Culligan could have pitched a tent in front of Edinburgh net-minder Travis Fullerton such was the time and space afforded by the Capitals defence, eventually poking the puck over the line after being fed by David Birnie.

A two-goal lead for the visitors soon became three, Fullerton possibly still seething at the effort from his team-mates in the previous passage of play, let a harmless looking shot from Guillaume Doucet through his pads less than 30 seconds later. It was a rare mistake from the keeper who has been outstanding since his summer move from Braehead Clan.

Edinburgh came to life after a fearless Sean Beattie blocked a cannon of a slap-shot midway through the second period. It looked like a bad injury for the man who made his GB debut earlier this week in a 4-2 friendly loss to Norway, but he returned later to play.

Edinburgh thereafter looked a different team, and scored a deserved goal in the 47th minute – Mike D’Orazio’s slap-shot on the power-play from just inside the blue line.

Edinburgh were unlucky not to reduce the deficit further, finding Devils goalie Ben Bowns, who had little to in the first half, in fine form. But a late Joey Martin goal finally sealed the win for the visitors.